Paris: November 2015

People are asking me about the astrology of the horrendous attacks on Paris. Astrology can help us focus our thoughts about something like this. But it’s always good to be reminded that the planets don’t make things happen; they reflect it, like a mirror. We see ourselves in the mirror but we don’t blame it for how we look.

It seems that this event is reflected in the square of Saturn in Sagittarius to Neptune in Pisces. This square becomes exact on November 26, 2015 EST. An aspect like this, between slower moving planets does not have to be exact to be significant. In fact, the moment that Saturn went direct in early August it was heading for this square: Even more specifically from mid-September when it reentered Sagittarius. This square will not be finished until after the summer of 2016. It will be even stronger then than it is now because Saturn and Neptune will be closer to the degrees that square each other for the whole summer. The last exact square is September 10th, 2016 EDT.

War is a chess game for those that orchestrate it. It is pure chaos for those who experience it. When i consider Saturn and Neptune I think that this war of terror (all war is terror) is about chaos. Saturn is the planet that symbolizes order. It represents authorities and people who manage. Neptune is definitely a planet of swirling, unstructured chaos. Sagittarius, where Saturn is at the moment and will be for a couple of years, is a sign of beliefs. It can be about wisdom and it can also be about dogma. It’s least honorable perspective is righteous fundamentalism. When the World Trade Tower disaster happened Pluto (the destroyer) was in Sagittarius and Saturn (the status quo) was in Gemini (twins – as in twin towers). We all know about the war that was declared then. We are still fighting it. Pisces, the sign that Neptune is travelling through at the moment speaks of great, big oceanic energies that swallow us all.

Given they they are at odds with each other we could say they, the planets, are at war in a way. Not a new war mind you, but a critical place in a war that has been going on for a while. And we could say that the war is between order (Saturn) and the desire to build that order based on fundamental beliefs; A holy war – and chaos (Neptune) the overwhelming power of change that arises from chaos – change that is not orchestrated any more than we can truly orchestrate the weather.

Paris is like a heart for western civilization. We all love it. To scatter it to the winds of terror is to strike a serious blow to the ’empire’. To hold on to order as we know it, as we have constructed it, makes us more and more subject to terrors of all sorts: if not Isis then the police state it is already giving rise to.

Neptune suggests that chaos of some sort is inevitable. Saturn has shown itself to be very competent at the chess game of destroying the empire. As individuals we must grieve and feel our outrage. We must process the trauma of an attack such as the one in Paris, even as we fear it could happen anywhere, at any time. To panic, however is to lose control of the single most organizing quality we have. We can call it soul and we can talk about God but these are just words for something that connects us to a truth that is beyond chaos. Neptune in Pisces likes that even more than it likes chaos and Saturn in Sagittarius can elevate its behavior with a faith that is not blind.

Here is a quote from Thomas Merton from a book titled: Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. May it inspire us to be more than manipulated by events even as we remain compassionate and present to the horror of them.

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs to our lives, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us… It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely… I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.”